Sustainability

 

Caring for our environment

We believe protecting the environment is fundamental to the thriving society and sound economy upon which business depends. Managing our own environmental efficiency is key to our efforts to make HSBC a more sustainable organisation.

Caring for our environment

Our flagship environmental programme

The HSBC Water Programme - investing in lives and livelihoods

Water is the world's most vital resource. It's essential for individuals, communities, economies and the environment. In 2010 nearly 800 million people were without access to safe water, and 2.5 billion without access to basic sanitation. As the global population grows, and the effects of climate change take hold, demand on freshwater resources will increase.

It's because water is vital to building healthy communities and developing economies, we have chosen to develop the HSBC Water Programme.

Together with three leading NGOs - Earthwatch, WaterAid and WWF - our five-year Water Programme will deliver the following goals:

  • WaterAid will help provide safe water to 1.1 million people and sanitation for 1.9 million people in South Asia and West Africa
  • WWF will protect freshwater eco-systems in some of the world's most important river basins - the Yangtze, Ganges, Mekong, Pantanal and Rift Valley; help thousands of small businesses tackle water risks and provide 140,000 fishermen and farmers with improved food security.
  • Together with Earthwatch, 100,000 HSBC employees across four continents will participate online in freshwater research and learning, and we will engage HSBC employees from all regions through one-day citizen science programmes.

This powerful combination of water provision, protection and education will result in the most ground-breaking water programme committed to by a financial organisation.

For more information about the HSBC Water Programme, please visit www.hsbc.com/sustainability/investing-in-communities/hsbc-water.

In 2011, following a review, we decided that from 2012, HSBC would no longer be carbon neutral. This is because the regulatory environment and international carbon markets have not developed in the way we envisaged. Instead we are concentrating our efforts internally and are committed to reducing our annual employee carbon emissions by one tonne, from 3.5 to 2.5 tonnes by 2020. To do this, we have developed a new 10-point strategy.

For more information about our Sustainability policy, and to view our 10-point strategy in detail, please visit
www.hsbc.com/sustainability/protecting-the-environment.